Hey Guys, It’s Ryan here from Explained,
and welcome to the channel. In today’s video we will be reviewing the movie “Against The Sun”,
released in 2014. The movie is based on the true survival story of three navy
airmen who got lost in the South Pacific ocean after crash landing their aircraft.
Let’s get started. Turn on subtitles and spoilers ahead.
The time period of the story is around the time when the Japanese attacked Pearl harbour,
and the United States had to join World War Two. Just weeks after the Japanese attack, the US sends
a total of 2000 men in torpedo bombers and fighter planes to destroy all Japanese navy fleets in the
South Pacific ocean. And one of the torpedo bombers is captained by pilot Harold Dixon.
With him, there is bombardier Tony Pastula, and radioman Gene Aldrich.
In somewhat hazy weather, the team realizes that they’ve lost their way.
And while trying to find their way back, they soon are faced with the problem of empty fuel. Gene
connects the radio and tries to get information on their bearings, but due to weak signal connection,
he fails to understand anything. They then try everything in their power, but they simply can’t
get in connection with their base. The sun has also started to go down, and what this means
is they have to land their aircraft on water, as they cannot find their aircraft carrier.
Harold commands his men to gather everything they might need: flash light, flares, first-aid kit,
water and everything else they need to survive until they get rescued. And with everything ready,
Harold lands the aircraft on the south pacific ocean. After landing, Harold manages to get out
without any trouble and starts to make an inflatable raft ready for them. Meanwhile,
Gene and Tony get stuck inside as their seat belt fails to open. They start to sink deep in the
ocean with the aircraft, but luckily, they manage to free themselves just in time, and get back up.
Harold commands them to let go of their weapons, which were dragging them down due to the weight.
Then, Harold inflates the raft, which unfortunately gets upside down. While trying
to flip it, their only flash light slips out of Gene’s hand, and falls down deep into the ocean.
They somehow manage to get the raft upwards, and then they all get on board. Everything
they packed before their landing gets lost while trying to save their lives,
but they are positive that they’ll be saved by the US navy.
Next day, they wake up in the raft, and Harold asks Gene how he couldn’t get any connection
on the radio. Gene then counter questions Harold how he lost his way in the flight.
Tony reads the situation and suggests they should look out for any kind of help.
They all take their position, and a little later, they see a fighter plane flying at a distance from
them. To get the attention of the aircraft, Harold asks Tony to spread the parachute on the ocean,
but Tony says he doesn’t have it. Harold then asks Gene about the flares,
but that too got lost last night when they crash landed.
So, they started to shout at the top of their lungs, to get the attention towards them.
But the aircraft is so far away that it fails to see them and returns back. Watching it leave,
Harold says that was their only chance to get rescued. The aircraft was there to search for
them, and since it didn’t find them, the search and rescue operation for them will be stopped.
It finally settles into their minds that they will have to save their lives on their own.
They have no food, first aid kit, flash light and not even water to drink,
which all sank down with their fighter plane.
With morale going down and Harold, being the captain, he takes charge of the raft,
and says that they need to follow his orders while they are in this situation. Then they
start to check whatever they have left in their pockets. Tony has few items that can be of use to
them. Harold has some navigation aids that might help them to land. Gene has a pocket knife on him,
and Harold tells him to keep it in his pocket, as it can easily cut the raft.
They find out that the raft they’re on is four years old. So, Harold suggests they should
minimize the weight on it. He asks them to take out their boots and throw them into the water.
Tony and Gene throw their boots away, but Harold keeps his shoes
in the raft saying that when they get to land, they will need one.
Tony and Gene agree to this idea, and then Tony finds that he still has a gun with him.
And with that, their survival journey begins. The day ends, and at night, they decide to take turns
while sleeping. They believe that one of them should stay awake in case rescue comes for them.
Since they haven’t had a sip of water for an entire day, Harold pees in the water
bag and drinks his own urine. Gene, seeing this, is disgusted by it and goes to sleep.
Next morning, Harold checks his navigation tool, and says that they’re moving towards Hawaii
which is 1900 miles away. But the wind changes its direction and when Gene asks where they’re headed,
Harold replies that they’re now moving towards an island controlled by the Japanese. But, there are
a few islands in between them which Harold says will take a couple of weeks for them to reach.
In order for them to survive, wind and its direction is very crucial.
Tony says that even if they reach the island, they’ll be dead within 2 weeks.
Gene says that there's plenty of fish in the water, and they just need to catch them.
Among the few items they have with them, there is a gun magazine.
They take the spring out of that magazine, and turn it into a fishing hook. Tony cuts a piece
of his handkerchief and uses it to resemble a bait, hoping that some fish will fall for it.
They throw the hook inside the water and wait for a fish to take it. Pretty quickly,
they feel a tug on the hook, and when they try to pull it, they find their hook is completely gone.
They realize that there are some big fishes just below them.
Just like this, a couple of days go by, and there is nothing except for the sun above them and the
ocean below. Gene is still in hope of catching any fish to satisfy their hunger. The raft is so small
that they can't even sit comfortably. And Gene cannot take the heat any longer. He wears the life
jacket and jumps into the water to cool down his body. Tony also tries to follow him, but Harold
quickly stops him. He says that it's dangerous to go in the water, as there might be sharks inside.
When Gene hears about the sharks, he quickly swims back and gets in the raft.
It’s been 5 days since they have been lost in the Pacific ocean.
All three of them have become very weak. They haven’t eaten anything,
and they haven’t even had a sip of water. Tony is so thirsty that he thinks of drinking seawater,
but Harold stops him saying it will only make him more dehydrated.
Gene asks Harold if he knows where they’re going. Harold checks his pocket to look at
the navigation tool, but finds a pencil inside. He gets really happy and says that he can make
a chart with it, which will give them a proper understanding of their position.
He quickly draws a chart on the raft, and with its help he finds
out that they are going the opposite direction of where they need to be.
Harold says that they need to stop the raft from moving in the wind’s direction.
With the help of the life jacket, and with the items they have with them, they manage to form
a make-shift anchor, which will allow them to stay put regardless of the wind’s direction.
The anchor works, and they finally have something to be positive about.
But, they’re still a long way from being saved. They still need the wind to be in their favor.
So, Gene starts to pray to God asking for the wind to always be on their side.
Harold also prays for the safety of all the ships sailing, along with the raft
that they’re on. Tony then prays for rain, so that they can finally drink some water.
But it doesn't rain, which really disappoints tony. Gene tells him to be patient,
and that night, it finally rains. They use everything possible at their disposal to
collect the rainwater, and after days, they finally get to drink some water.
Next day, Gene is still patiently waiting for any fish to grab onto the hook.
Harold says that he has never seen a patient fisherman like him.
It has been 7 days that Gene has been waiting patiently, but he too starts to get frustrated.
Gene takes out his knife from his pocket and wants to use it to catch fish.
Harold warns him that this can cause damage to their raft. Gene completely ignores him and starts
to hit the knife on water hoping a fish might get caught. But he thinks that he has hit the
raft by mistake. Harold tells him to not take out the knife, because it will only deflate the raft.
But surprisingly, Gene had actually struck a shark, which comes flying into the raft.
Tony and Harold quickly grab on to the shark, and Gene uses this opportunity to kill it.
When they cut the body of the dead shark, they found small fishes inside its stomach.
After days of not eating anything, they finally have something to eat,
which will help them have much needed energy to survive. Harold saves some meat to use as bait,
and he is positive that he’ll return back home to his wife and daughter. Despite them being in the
same team, they don’t know much about each other. Tony says that he isn’t married but
has a girlfriend. Gene, on the other hand, is neither married nor does he have a girlfriend.
Tony tells him when they return, he can date his sister who is really beautiful.
Gene asks him to tell him more about his sister,
while they clean the raft to get rid of the blood of the dead shark. And pretty soon,
they get surrounded by sharks, which had smelled the blood they were pouring into the water.
But their luck is strong this time, as the sharks don’t do anything to them.
However, at night, when Gene puts his hand inside the water, it gets bitten by a shark.
Luckily, the bite isn’t too deep, and Gene will survive.
Ten days have gone and they are still at the mercy of the wind. There’s only some water
left from what they had collected from rain. Gene is still unsuccessfully trying to catch fish with
his knife. But they still haven’t lost any hope, and pray to god for their safety and survival.
A few more days go by, and they occasionally manage to collect rain water to drink, and stay
hydrated. One day, Gene sees an island and points in its direction, but it’s all a hallucination.
They’ve all lost hope, and Tony is staring at his gun, probably contemplating taking
his own life. Then, Gene asks him to give him the gun. Tony hands over the gun,
and we see that a bird is sitting on their raft. Gene points the gun at the bird and shoots it.
Harold wakes up from the loud gunshot, and when he realizes the situation,
he quickly jumps in the water to get the bird. Harold gets the bird,
but a shark is looming just behind him. He quickly swims back, and before the shark
gets to him, he manages to get on the raft and saves himself from being shark’s food.
And now they once again have something to eat while they wait to get to the island.
It has been 20 days since they got lost in the pacific ocean,
and their situation has gotten worse than before. Harold finds out that all of them were sleeping,
and no one was on watch to look at the direction of the wind. He wakes them up and starts to shout
at them for not obeying his orders. Gene is also frustrated and he talks back to Harold,
saying that they have nowhere to go and nothing to see. In 20 days, they should’ve already
reached the island. He asks where the island that Harold has always been talking about is.
Harold then says that he has a rough picture of the map. Hearing that Harold only had a rough
picture and not a concrete idea of the whereabouts of the island, Tony and Gene get demotivated.
Gene even blames Harold for everything. He says that they had to land on the ocean due to Harold,
and they got lost in it because of him as well. He blames Harold for everything. And Harold
also accepts his mistake. When they were flying, Harold had actually fallen asleep, and when he got
woken up by Tony, they were already far away from where they needed to be. Not knowing where he was,
he mistakenly took the wrong direction taking them further away from their station. After that,
Gene couldn’t get any signal on the radio, because they were already so far away from it’s reach.
Tony and Gene are in total shock to know that they
are in this situation due to their chief’s mistake.
Harold apologizes to them, and he even cries while doing so.
He has the biggest guilt in his heart for putting his, along with his crewmates’ lives in danger.
Gene picks up the life jacket in which Harold had drawn the map.
He says that having this map is better than not having any hopes of survival,
and hands it over to Harold. With no wind moving, Harold gets a plan.
He suggests that they use his shoes as paddles to move the raft to whichever direction they want.
Gene hands him his knife, and Harold uses it to create paddles out of the shoe pads.
And with it, they start to row the raft towards the direction of the island,
which is their only hope of surviving. But they’re still miles away from the island,
and it soon reaches 30 days. They are totally exhausted and weak. They can’t
even move their body. However, they don’t give up and they continue rowing their raft.
That evening, it starts to rain, and they begin to collect rainwater. But it isn’t some usual rain. A
storm is on its way. They get hit by incoming waves, and Harold gets thrown into the water.
He tries to get back but a larger wave is coming towards them which completely topples them.
The shoe pad which they used as paddles gets lost, and Tony is also nowhere to be seen.
They call out for him, and finally find him praying for the sake of their lives.
They all get inside the raft and somehow, they manage to survive the storm.
They’re all exhausted and whatever they had with them got lost in the storm last night.
They’ve lost all hopes of surviving. They start to think of their loved ones and family.
Harold thinks of his wife, and Gene hallucinates that Tony’s sister is right in front of him,
just as beautiful as Tony had described her to be. He tells Tony that he has fallen in
love with his sister. And Tony replies that they could’ve been a great couple.
Harold starts to get emotional as he believes it’s all his fault.
They have almost believed that there’s no way they’re going to get out of it alive.
Just then, Tony gathers all his strength and gets up.
He says that if God has chosen their course, it’s because he wants them to make it.
They have already come far enough to give up. Then they all start to row the raft with their hands.
They move some distance, but again they’re drained out of energy. No longer able to control
his thirst, Harold drinks the seawater, and just then, Gene says that he sees something green. They
all get up and find an island in front of them. Seeing land for the first time in over 30 days,
they all get really happy, and are once again filled with energy.
They start to paddle their way to the island and they finally reach land. As they say goodbye to
the raft which kept them alive for more than 30 days, they move forward on the island.
In total, the three of them spent 34 days on the pacific ocean. And after sailing more
than a thousand miles, they managed to get to that island on February 20th 1942. Harold was
awarded the navy cross for leading his crew to safety, and never again flew a combat mission.
Tony had suffered some injuries which didn’t allow him to continue in his navy career.
After his death in 1986, his ashes were scattered in the sea.
Gene continued in the navy and when he served out, he married Tony’s sister Frances in 1946.
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